Is the bank ATM a public good?

..........The subtext, sometimes articulated, is that since 60% of the adult population does not have a bank account, an ATM is essentially an elitist construct, not worthy of being within the protective cover of the general law and order setup. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) obscure diktat to banks to provide adequate security to ATMs and the Karnataka government’s summary closure of ATMs because of non-compliance with the security-guard requirement are emblematic of this muddled thinking. What everyone conveniently forgets is that an ATM is not tied to the mother bank—the free usage of another bank’s ATM (up to a fairly liberal limit) has made the ATM a near-public place...........

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